They're doing it wrong. A well designed system would not 'favor' a road based on anything other than the current traffic loads. The designers were too clever and designed a system that tries to second guess by previous patterns what it should do. A much dumber sensor driven system would work a lot better.

Nothing about my post regarded high fuel efficiency vehicles of any age. I said they would target vehicles that were old AND dirtier (by which I meant bad seals leading to burning oil, etc), AND less fuel efficient. I meant all three would apply to get the maximum payment if they were serious about reducing vehicular pollution.

As for hybrids, a Toyota Prius is rated at 48 MPG in the city. The 2010 models are supposed to approach 60 MPG in the city. The 94 Civics are rated at 25 to 39 in the city, depending on model. That's not a tie, that's a clear win for the hybrids IMO. They really only tie in the highway ratings.

One thing I've alwasy thought would help a lot would be better traffic control systems. Governments don't really have a big incentive to really optimize these systems and I think that great strides could be made in improving them. I always wind up spending several minutes every time I go to work sitting at lights when there is no traffic going the other way. That should never happen. Better and more intelligent systems would mean faster commutes, less idling at red lights, and fewer cars on the road at any one time since travel times would be shorter.

Europe, Japan, and many other such countries have much higher average population densities than America does. The cost / benefit ratio, or return on investment for public transportation is directly correlated to population density.

I live in Tucson. It's a medium sized city sprawled out over many miles of area. The cost per capita to truly cover the grid that is Tucson and the surrounding areas well enough that people would not need cars would be enough to bankrupt very individual living in Tucson. Instead we make do with some bus lines that move along major routes to a few major locations and it will take you a couple of hours to get across town.

If you read to the bottom, they will over the higher dollar amounts for the 2002 and later vehicles. These will be the most modern and least polluting cars, so they are paying more to junk the least harmful cars.

If this was about reducing emissions, they would pay more to get older, dirtier, and less fuel efficient cars off the road. The worse the mpg, the more they would pay. This is about encouraging people that proved they have the money to buy a newer car to cycle into another newer car a lot sooner than they would. It's proof this is about encouraging consumerism, not ecology.

From the linked article, next to last paragraph:

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BYD's hybrid car has a small gasoline engine as a back up.

Okay, I'll bite - what does Apple's phone do that Nokia's don't?

The iTunes store.